


To Corrupt an Angel

by executionersong



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Drinking, Episode: s04e01 Lazarus Rising, Episode: s04e02 Are You There God? It's Me Dean Winchester, Episode: s04e07 It's the Great Pumpkin Sam Winchester, Episode: s04e16 On the Head of a Pin, M/M, Past Tense, Slow Burn, Supernatural Season 4, am i doing this right, how do you format, if anyone cares, this is just season 4 but destiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:01:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29531670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/executionersong/pseuds/executionersong
Summary: The fall of Castiel began, as things so often did, with a human.Sort of like retelling of season 4 but with a focus on Castiel and his struggle with faith, doubts, and Dean Winchester.Some of this is pretty directly from the show and some is my own invention.Literally the first fanfic I've ever written I have no idea what I'm doing.
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester
Kudos: 2





	To Corrupt an Angel

The fall of Castiel began, as things so often did, with a human.

CASTIEL  
When Castiel first met the righteous man, he thought that perhaps there had been a mistake.  
“Who are you really?” he asked Castiel.  
Castiel was confused. “I told you.”  
“And why would an angel rescue me from hell?”  
Castiel had not expected this response. “Good things do happen, Dean.”  
Dean Winchester looked at him hard. “Not in my experience.”  
His face was a mask of stony anger, but it was rippled with fine cracks. Castiel saw through it as easily as if it were glass, observing the fear, guilt, and confusion boiling underneath, barely contained. His eyes narrowed.  
“What’s the matter?” he asked, astonished, and then he understood. “You don’t think you deserve to be saved.” It was a statement, not a question.  
Some intense emotion flitted across Dean’s face, another brief crack in the mask, and then it was gone. Castiel studied him. His palm itched from inside his vessel. He was conscious of the shape branded on Dean’s shoulder.  
“Why’d you do it?”  
“Because God commanded it,” Castiel said simply.  
Dean Winchester was not what Castiel had expected at all.

* * *

  
DEAN  
The second time Dean met Castiel, he was afraid.  
When Dean woke up, the room was cold and empty. His head felt full to bursting with dreams, trickling away like water as he sat on the motel bed, scrubbing at his eyes with his hands. He thought they might have involved feathers…and blood, and fire.  
Slowly he became aware of a presence. He walked to the kitchen, where Castiel stood watching him. He squinted at him. “How long have you been there?”  
“Not long,” the angel answered. Dean watched him warily. “Is there a reason you’re interrupting my beauty sleep?”  
Castiel sighed, which was amusing in some far away part of Dean’s brain. “The witnesses, Dean.”  
“You knew about that?” Dean was surprised. And annoyed.  
“I was made aware.”  
“Well, thanks a lot for the angelic assistance,” Dean growled. “You know I almost got my heart ripped out of my chest?”  
Castiel looked impassive. “But you didn’t.”  
Dean was offended. “I thought angels were supposed to be guardians. Fluffy wings, halos, you know? Michael Landon. Not assholes.”  
“Read the Bible,” Castiel intoned, moving closer. “Angels are warriors of God. I’m a _soldier_.” He said this last part with an emphasis Dean didn’t like.  
“Yeah?” Dean retorted. “Then why didn’t you fight?”  
Castiel was now quite close. “I’m not here to perch on your shoulder. We had larger concerns.”  
“Concerns? There are people getting torn to shreds down here!” He was getting tired of this dance; he was ready for some straight answers. “Where the hell is your boss, huh, if there really is a God?” He wasn’t sure where the question came from; only that he hadn’t intended to ask it.  
“There is a God.”  
Dean thought Castiel looked a little lost for a moment as he said it. There was a long pause while Dean tried to grasp the absurdity of the situation. Here he was in front of the kitchen sink in a shitty motel, arguing about whether God exists with an angel. This must be some terrible cosmic joke.  
“So…Bobby was right,” Dean started slowly, trying to get his thoughts back on track. “About the witnesses. This is a sign or something. Of the apocalypse.”  
Cas nodded. “That’s why we’re here. The rising of the witnesses is one of the 66 seals. They’re being broken by Lilith.”  
The name awakened a previously repressed knot of dread in the pit of Dean’s stomach. “She did the spell. She rose the witnesses.”  
Castiel inclined his head and Dean said, ”But we put the spirits back to rest.”  
His heart sank when Castiel replied, “It doesn’t matter. The seal was broken.”  
“Why break the seal anyway?” Dean had an inkling that he wouldn’t like the answer, but he asked anyways.  
Castiel hesitated. “Think of the seals as locks on a door.”  
“Okay, and when the last one opens?” Dean persisted.  
“Lucifer walks free.”  
Dean gaped. “ _Lucifer?_ I thought Lucifer was just a story they told at – I don’t know – demon Sunday school…there’s no such thing.”  
Cas smiled wryly. “Three days ago, you thought there was no such thing as me.” Dean couldn’t help but stare. “Why do you think we’re here, walking among you now for the first time in 2000 years?”  
“To stop Lucifer,” Dean whispered. Cas nodded. “That’s why we’ve arrived.”  
Dean felt the knot of fear in his stomach unfurl into hot molten anger. A battalion of angels and he, Dean, was somehow being made responsible for preventing the rise of the Devil himself?  
“Well, great fucking job so far,” he spat with a scornful laugh. “Stellar work with the witnesses.”  
Castiel’s eyes narrowed. “We tried. There are other battles, other seals. Some we’ll win, some we’ll lose. This one we lost.” Dean scoffed, looking away, and Castiel moved to stand in front of him. The angel’s gaze on him felt harsh as wind through a desert, unnerving Dean.  
“Our numbers are not unlimited,” Castiel told him. “Six of my brothers died in the field this week. You think the armies of heaven should just follow you around? There’s a bigger picture here.” He leaned closer. Dean felt the power radiating off him like the sun, simultaneously mesmerizing and menacing. For the first time, he felt afraid of the angel. He cursed himself inwardly.  
“You should show me some respect,” Castiel said quietly. “I dragged you out of hell. I can throw you back in.”  
Dean swallowed, unable to speak. He was close enough to see the strange juxtaposition of the ordinary blue of the angel’s eyes against the pupils, eerily contracted despite the dim light of the kitchen. He seemed more angel than man. As if his true form was somehow eclipsing the vessel.  
A flash of what might have been shame darkened Castiel’s eyes for a moment, and then he was gone.

* * *

  
CASTIEL  
The next time Castiel spoke to Dean Winchester, he said too much.  
Castiel didn’t know what was happening to him. Not understanding was beginning to feel like a running theme when it came to Dean Winchester. Something inside him inexplicably hurt, but he’d checked his vessel countless times over for injuries and he was unable to find the source of the hurt. It was like it was coming from somewhere inside himself. And he couldn’t stop thinking, going over the events of the past few months, the orders he was compelled to carry out, the doubts that scratched away at the walls of the box he kept them locked in. And of course – Dean Winchester, as omnipresent in his thoughts as Castiel’s mysterious phantom pain.  
“Let me guess,” Dean said. “You’re here for the “I told you so”.”  
They were sitting on separate benches at a park in the small town. One of the seals had broken yesterday. Samhain.  
“No,” Castiel said.  
“Well good, because I’m not interested.”  
Castiel studied him. “I am not here to judge you, Dean.”  
He looked unimpressed. “Then why are you here?”  
It was always so complicated with him, Castiel thought. He was used to the easy certainty of following orders – knowing exactly what was right, what was wrong, where to go and how to get there. But somehow Dean threw everything off. Castiel felt unbalanced around him – like he didn’t know what was right and what was wrong anymore. He only knew what he was _supposed_ to do.  
“Our orders were not to stop the summoning of Samhain,” he explained. “They were to do whatever you told us to do.”  
Dean looked skeptical. “Your orders were to follow my orders?”  
Castiel nodded. “It was a test. To see how you would perform under…battlefield conditions, you might say.”  
“It was a witch, not the Tet Offensive.”  
Castiel surprised himself by laughing, a strange chain reaction of muscle contractions that felt foreign to him. He thought Dean’s expression softened a little, and he sat back on the bench.  
“So I failed your test, huh? I get it. But you know, if we had to do it all over again, I’d make the same call,” Dean said. Castiel considered it for a moment. The seal had been broken, and yet Dean didn’t seem to consider it a failure. “Because,” he continued. “I don’t know what’s gonna happen when these seals are broken – hell, I don’t even know what’s gonna happen tomorrow. But what I do know is that this, here?” He gestured in front of them. “These kids, the swings, the trees, all of it is still here because of my brother and me.”  
Castiel looked. He saw the same thing as Dean, he thought. Life. Innocence. Joy. He wasn’t supposed to value these things. He was a soldier, built for carrying out orders. Values, emotions, opinions, and least of all, doubts – these had no place in a war. He knew this. But he felt it all anyways. “Can I tell you something if you promise not to tell another soul?”  
Dean blinked at him. “Okay.”  
He hesitated. “I’m not a…hammer, as you say. I…I have doubts. I don’t know what is right and what is wrong anymore – whether you passed or failed here,” he confessed. He looked at Dean, and was shocked at the reappearance of the mystery hurt, burning through him at the weariness and pain he saw on Dean’s face. This time, he thought, it seemed to come from his chest.  
Castiel knew he’d said too much, and yet somehow, he felt like he hadn’t said enough. The space between himself and Dean felt unbelievably vast, but he felt certain that – if he reached out – he could almost touch him.  
Dean looked away, and the moment was gone.  
Castiel needed to go.

* * *

  
CASTIEL  
Castiel was in trouble.  
Dean Winchester was – once again – messing with his head. He had thought he was mostly recovered from the effects Dean had on him, after a little while of no contact with him – this being due, he suspected, to the efforts of his superiors. But now he was back in the same room as Dean, and experiencing the now familiar sensation of being blinded by the furious ball of emotions that was Dean Winchester. It was like looking directly at the sun, Castiel thought. The intensity of Dean’s emotions was stronger than any Castiel had ever seen in a human.  
Castiel pointed to the door of the room they were holding Alastair in. “He’s in there.”  
Dean walked over. Castiel saw the tense set of his shoulders, the way he clenched and unclenched his fists as he gazed through the window, and almost recoiled at the fear he sensed coming off of Dean, hitting Cas like a tsunami wave flooding the room. Dean swallowed, oblivious to the effect he was having on Castiel. He turned around. “Fascinating,” he said, his voice barely controlled. “Where’s the door?”  
“Where are you going?” Uriel was on his feet.  
“I’m going to hitch back to Cheyenne, thank you very much.” Dean was halfway across the room before Uriel stopped him. “Angels are dying, boy,” he said quietly.  
“Everybody’s dying these days,” Dean spat. “And hey, I get it, you’re all-powerful! You can make me do whatever you want, right? But _you can’t make me do this_.” He turned and directed this last part to Castiel, looking him in the eyes.  
Cas wanted to look away, but instead he said, “This is too much to ask, I know.” He knew his words weren’t enough. “But we have to ask it.”  
Even as he said it, he didn’t believe it. He didn’t understand why Dean was necessary for the interrogation of the demon. There was nothing Dean could do that he and Uriel could not. Cas wasn’t even sure there was anything they could do to get the information from the demon regardless. The whole thing seemed like it was nothing but an exercise in cruelty.  
But Castiel had orders. He broke the eye contact first, and Dean looked away too, turning around to glare at Uriel. “I want to talk to Cas.” He paused. “Alone.”  
Uriel raised a brow, and Dean glowered at him for a long moment while the angel regarded Dean as if he were something foul stuck to his shoe. He shifted his gaze to Castiel, who nodded.  
“I think I’ll go seek revelation. We might have some further orders.” At that, Uriel turned on his heel and disappeared in a whirlwind of feathers.  
Dean turned back to Castiel. “What’s going on, Cas? Since when does Uriel put a leash on you?”  
Cas felt uncomfortable. “I, uh…” He trailed off. “My superiors have begun to question my sympathies.”  
“Your sympathies?” Dean echoed.  
“I was getting too close to the humans in my charge.” He paused. “You.” Dean looked startled, and Cas felt warm. “Even to your brother,” he continued. “They feel I’ve begun to express emotions – doorways to doubt. This can impair my judgement.”  
To Castiel’s surprise, Dean seemed irritated; he scowled. “So they knock you down the ladder and they put Uriel in charge?”  
What a strange thing humans are, Castiel thought. “He is a proud and able instrument of God,” he said impassively.  
“And you’re just okay with the demotion?” Dean asked sharply.  
Cas hesitated. The truth was that he wasn’t bothered by the other angel being his superior. It was knowing that his doubts – his failings – were so apparent as to make the other angels suspicious of him that made him ashamed. The box he’d locked that part of himself away in had not been strong enough, had been far less secure than he’d imagined. He felt, in fact, a touch of relief at having less power; he knew he could not be trusted with power while the disloyalty festered inside him. He couldn’t admit any of this to the human standing before him. After a long moment he said simply, “It is what it is.”  
Dean searched Castiel’s face with an intensity that unnerved him. For a second, Cas was convinced Dean was seeing past his vessel and perceiving his true form – but this was impossible. Dean sighed. “Well, tell Uriel – or whoever – they do not want me doing this, trust me.”  
“Want it?” Castiel repeated. “No. But…I’ve been told we need it.”  
Dean stared through the window to the other room. He looked haunted, waves of fear and guilt rolling off him like smoke. Cas could almost taste it.  
“Cas…” Dean started. “The things that I did…” His voice trailed off. He breathed in shakily, lips trembling. “What I became… You ask me to open that door and walk through it? You will not like what walks back out.” Cas knew he didn’t just mean the door they stood in front of.  
Watching him, Castiel’s chest ached like he had been stabbed. He knew, somehow, what he should say – what he had to say – to convince Dean. But he couldn’t seem to find the conviction in their truth. He thought again of the box he carried his doubts in, battered and unsound. He needed to close it. He didn’t believe in this order, it was true, but he shouldn’t need to believe in it to carry it out. He shouldn’t _want_ to believe in it. He was a soldier: nothing more, nothing less.  
“You know what we’re all fighting for. And dying for. What Pamela lost her life for. You know what will happen if we fail.” He stopped, feeling guilty for invoking the name of the woman whose eyes he had burnt out. He listened to the unsteady breathing on the other side of the room. He hated himself.  
“For what its worth...” he said haltingly. “I would give anything… not to have you do this.” He knew as he said it that it was the first wholly true thing he had told Dean Winchester since they arrived.  
Still, Cas was moments away from telling him forget it, he’ll do it himself, when Dean said suddenly and in a strangled voice, “I’ll need a few things.”

* * *

  
DEAN  
The first time Castiel saved Dean’s life, he didn’t thank him.  
Everything hurt. Dean was in bed. He could still feel the ghost of the demon’s hands around his bruised throat, squeezing the life out of him. He had been certain, his vision turning grey at the edges, that when he died, he would wake up back in Hell, surrounded by the vicious heat and horror of the place just as if he’d never left. He’d tried to pry the demon’s fingers from his throat, but his arms felt immovably heavy at his sides. The last thing he saw before everything went dark was Castiel, blade gleaming through the darkness and fury in his eyes, the picture of holy wrath. He had thought dimly that it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Now he realized, lying there in the hospital bed, that it was all a facade. The angels had been lying to him all along.  
He heard the whoosh of wings and opened his eyes to see Castiel in the chair next to him. The angel wasn’t looking at him.  
“Are you all right?” he asked.  
“No thanks to you,” Dean replied hoarsely.  
Cas’s brow furrowed as if he was in pain. He turned to look at Dean, frowning. “You need to be more careful.”  
“You need to learn how to manage a damn devil’s trap,” Dean retorted.  
Castiel didn’t respond, only looked at him as if he wasn’t fully seeing him, and Dean noticed for the first time that the collar of his trenchcoat was stained with blood, and the angel looked troubled and exhausted.  
“That’s not what I mean,” he said absently. “Uriel is dead.”  
Uriel? Dean was shocked. “Was it the demons?”  
“It was disobedience.” Cas looked uneasy. “He was working against us.”  
That must be why Cas had blood on his coat, Dean realized. He’d killed him. For a moment he wondered at the toll it must have taken on the angel, killing his brother. Then he realized the implication of Castiel’s admission. Uriel was working against them. That must be what had happened to the devil’s trap; he had been trying to kill Dean. Maybe there had never been any order to torture Alastair in the first place. If the order had been false, maybe the demon’s information had been false as well.  
He needed to know, needed to ask, and yet he found himself struggling with the words, as if some long-forgotten self-preservation instinct was belatedly kicking in. Finally he forced them out through numb lips, wincing at the pain in his throat. “Is it true?” Cas looked at him sharply, as if Dean’s voice had brought him out of his reverie. Dean swallowed hard and continued, “Did I break the first seal? Did I start all this?”  
Dean felt his heart sink through the floor as he watched Cas’s eyes flicker away from his own. He knew what he was going to say before he said it. “Yes.” His voice was level. “When we discovered Lilith’s plan for you, we laid siege to hell and fought our way to get to you before you–”  
“Jump-started the apocalypse,” Dean finished. He couldn’t bear to look at him. He kept his eyes trained resolutely on the bloodstains on Cas’s coat.  
“And we were too late.”  
 _Too late_. Dean thought of the moment he picked up the knife for the first time in Hell, unaware of the consequences it would have, unaware of the angel who now sat at his bedside fighting to reach him. Only aware of the unending suffering, and worst of all, the knowledge that it would never stop, that there was only an eternity of torture waiting for him, stretching ahead of him in an incomprehensible, vast ocean of dread. “Why didn’t you just leave me there then?” he forced out.  
Castiel trained his sad, ancient eyes on him in a look that scared him. “It’s not blame that falls on you, Dean,” he said. “It’s fate. The righteous man who begins it is the only one who can finish it.” He let out a breath, his face lit with significance in the dim hospital room. “ _You_ have to stop it.”  
Dean felt like he’d been punched in the gut. “Lucifer?” he croaked. “The apocalypse? What does that mean?” He felt bewildered, a cornered animal. He fixed upon Castiel like a man drowning and clung to the weak bolt of rage that shot through him. “Hey!” Dean barely registered the pain in his throat. “Don’t go disappearing on me, you son of a bitch. What does that _mean_?”  
“I don’t know.” Cas sounded weary.  
Dean fought back the tears burning his eyes. Please, no. Not him. He was just so tired. “Bullshit,” he whispered, weakly now and without venom, the anger draining from him as fast as it had appeared. He just wanted to be done with being responsible, done with protecting, and done – most of all – with failing. He couldn’t do it. He felt unbearably heavy.  
“Dean,” Castiel said. “They don’t tell me much.” His voice was surprisingly gentle. “I only know our fate rests with you.”  
Dean thought of cradling Sam’s body in his arms as he died, his blood slippery on Dean hands. He thought of his father on the floor of a hospital room just like this one, and the half-remembered heat of the fire that had burned his mother alive as he carried his baby brother into the cool night air. He thought about what Alastair had said as Dean had tried to torture him. He hadn’t been able to save anyone; it was true. “I can’t do it, Cas. It’s too big.” He turned his face away from the angel so he couldn’t see the tears overflow. “Alastair was right. I’m not…I’m not all here. I’m not strong enough.” He struggled to take a deep breath, his throat feeling like it was closing up. “I guess I’m not the man either of our dads wanted me to be. Find someone else. It’s not me.” He turned away.  
He had closed his eyes, wetness running down his cheeks now, when he felt the touch of a warm, dry hand; he opened his eyes to find Cas was leaning across the gap between them to place his hand over Dean’s own. He didn’t say anything, didn’t even look Dean in the eyes, which he was grateful for. Dean didn’t move for fear that Cas would move his hand or disappear, and they sat that way for some time, neither of them saying anything, until Dean’s breathing had evened out and the tears had stopped flowing. Then he struggled to a sitting position in bed, wincing at the pain in his…everywhere. Dean pretended not to notice Cas remove his hand.  
Okay, he thought. So the angels think I can somehow save an entire planet’s worth of people. Okay. Fine. That’s not my problem. He wiped the remnants of tears from his eyes with the back of his arm, stinging the cuts on his cheeks, and then ripped the IV out of his arm.  
Cas watched in alarm as Dean rose unsteadily from the bed and went to the closet for his clothes. “Where are you going?”  
“To find a bar.”  
“Why?”  
“No booze at the motel. Or here.” Dean turned his back to the angel as he pulled the hospital gown off and yanked on his shirt. He was thankful the nurse had left his jeans on.  
There was no reply. Dean started pulling on his shoes, daring Cas with his eyes to stop him.  
He didn’t. “At least let me heal you,” Castiel said quietly instead.  
Dean hesitated. He wasn’t sure what to make of this new Cas, who didn’t mention orders or commands every thirty seconds, who offered to heal him for no reason. He shrugged despite feeling apprehensive as Cas approached him. “Okay.”  
Cas touched him on the forehead and Dean, suddenly feeling like his whole body was being encased in a warm glow, involuntarily closed his eyes. For a split second as the many aches and stings, cuts and bruises on Dean’s body healed themselves, he had the curious sensation that part of Castiel was in him, putting him back together from the inside out, almost intimate in the strangest way. Dean felt intensely uncomfortable. When the glow faded and Cas removed his hand, Dean cleared his throat self-consciously. “Thanks.” He made for the door and stopped as the angel made to follow him. “Look, buddy, I appreciate you healing me and all, but I’m about to go get hammered in a shitty bar instead of dealing with my problems and I’d rather do it alone. If you don’t mind.”  
Castiel looked unsure. The angel made an oddly forlorn figure, silhouetted against the window of the hospital room. “Dean, I…” he began. Then: “I have orders to watch over you.”  
Dean snorted. Of course. There’s the Castiel Dean knew. “Okay, fine. Whatever.”  
He was halfway to the parking lot with Cas trailing behind him, barely avoiding the panicked nurse who’d been assigned to him, when he remembered an important detail. “Fuck. Sam has the car.” An idea occurred to him and he turned to Castiel. “Hey, buddy. How about you just zap us over to that bar down the street?”  
Cas looked unimpressed, but he reached out to touch Dean on the forehead once more. One second, wind was rushing violently past Dean’s ears, the world transformed into a blur, and the next, they were sitting on comfortable stools at a nearly empty bar. A man nearby fell off his chair in shock, but otherwise they seemed to have gone unnoticed.  
“Okay. If you have to be here, you have to drink,” Dean informed Cas, signaling to the bartender.  
“Dean, I don’t get drunk the same way you humans do.”  
Dean dismissed this with a wave, and a shot of whiskey. He gestured exaggeratedly to the identical shot in front of Cas. Cas sighed deeply and downed it as easily as if it were water.  
“So, what’s the deal with the heaven stuff? The, uh, trouble in paradise?” Dean took a moment to chuckle at his own joke, then threw back another shot, grimacing a little.  
Castiel looked alarmed. “Oh. My superiors – they weren’t satisfied with…how I was carrying out orders.” He reached for the next glass unprompted.  
Dean watched him curiously. “You said they thought you were getting too close to me. And Sam. What did you mean?”  
Cas shrugged. “I don’t know, Dean. Perhaps they think it’s inappropriate of me to take you to bars to get drunk.” His mouth quirked upwards in the hint of a smile, but he didn’t meet Dean’s eyes. Dean didn’t push it. He was only just starting to feel a little less like he was barely containing a scream.  
They sat in silence for a bit, Dean alternating between checking out the bartender and nursing the next few glasses of whiskey. He found himself thinking about his dad, about the way he’d down whiskey after a dangerous hunt just like Dean was now. He rarely thought about John for any extended length of time anymore; he knew better than to go down that dark mental path. But when he hit about the five drink mark, the repressed emotions bubbled to the surface, dulled by the alcohol to the point of being tolerable, and Dean welcomed them because, to tell the truth, he missed the bastard. He didn’t miss John’s drinking, of course, and he didn’t miss his anger; he didn’t miss the constant guilt-by-association that traveled with the man like a goddamn rain cloud, and he didn’t miss feeling like nothing he did was good enough. But he missed being told what to do. He missed someone else making the decisions for him. Someone else telling him: _this is what needs to happen_ , and _this is what you need to do_ , and most of all _this is the right thing to do_.  
The bartender refilled their glasses and Dean mutely pushed one over to Cas after draining his own. “Cas,” he said abruptly. He felt very warm.  
Castiel raised his face to Dean’s and Dean found himself momentarily entranced by the curve of Cas’s cheek, the fan of his dark eyelashes against his browbone. He shook himself mentally. “Why do the angels think I can save all those people?” His voice trembled slightly, as if to reflect the feeble spin the room was beginning to take on.  
Cas was quiet. He seemed to understand even before Dean himself that Dean wasn’t talking about the apocalypse – not really. And Dean continued, unable to stop himself, “I couldn’t save Sam. He died, and I didn’t get there in time. I couldn’t protect him. And now I can’t protect him from Ruby. Every time I try, it just pushes him further away from me. The one thing – _the one thing_ – my dad asked me to do, and I couldn’t even do that.” The words surged from him like a river overflowing its banks and Dean realized he was drunker than he’d thought. Drinking on an empty stomach, he thought. Not a good idea.  
He started to laugh. How absurd and pathetic, getting drunk next to an angel of the lord. This guy could smite me to oblivion in a second, Dean thought, and here I am spilling my guts to him like he’s a damn shrink.  
Cas tilted his head. “What’s so funny?”  
Dean continued to snort-laugh, wiping tears from his eyes. “Nothing, nothing,” he chortled, shaking his head.  
Castiel looked thoughtful, his blue eyes serious. Watching him, Dean found his mirth had disappeared as fast as it had arrived. He was surprised at the intensity of Cas’s expression. “Dean,” Castiel began. “Maybe this isn’t my place, but…I think Sam is his own person. Perhaps you don’t need to be responsible for him.” The angel hesitated. “And maybe…maybe obedience isn’t all there is. I believed you had to torture the demon Alastair because I believed it was an order from God. But it wasn’t.”  
“You didn’t know that, Cas.” Dean looked at him oddly. Was he trying to apologize? Dean’s head was beginning to ache.  
Cas shook his head. “I know. But I knew it was wrong. And you nearly died because I didn’t act on that.” He stood up suddenly. “You’ve had too much to drink.”  
He was right. The room was now spinning heartily, and Dean was craving a cheeseburger. He craned his neck to look at Cas. The lights overhead seemed to wreath Castiel in a golden glow, causing Dean to have to squint against the glare. Behind him, some overdramatic 90s song played over the speakers, some of the words floating back to him.  
 _I thought that I heard you laughing,  
I thought that I heard you sing,  
I think I thought I saw you try…_  
Dean closed his eyes, swaying. Cas threw some money down on the table and reached out to grip Dean’s arm in a firm but gentle hold. “Come on, Dean.”


End file.
